International meetings

On 26-27 of June 2018 MATE partners met in Alicante in order to discuss the stage of implementation of project activities. The meeting was organised by University of Alicante in t he historic building of the university in the city centre. Partners decided to meet before the summer time to summarize works related to the cooperation with schools and establish task plan for next months to have the tool ready for teachers and students before the new school year. During 2 days meeting they discussed: technical design of the tool, training activities to be implemented in schools in Poland, Spain and Lithuania, results of testing phase as well as project management, dissemination and quality procedures.

On the 30th and 31st of January, the 3rd MATE Project Meeting took place in Kaunas (Lithuania) under the organization of the Lithuanian Team. During the meeting sessions, the following key points were developed:

The first day was dedicated exclusively to treat those aspects of the MATE tool development that the Lithuanian colleagues are still designing. Lithuanian colleagues introduced the tasks and work done and the rest of partners did their feedback and exposed their suggestions and improvements on the draft tool.

The second day was focused on discussing about the recruitment of teachers and students participating at each School in each country. It is still pending the date of the next project meeting in Alicante (Spain) due to the delays on the tool development. Regarding Project’s Dissemination, a discussion took place about developing diplomas for the children participating as well as a posters for the participating schools and also a certificate for the teachers involved. The MATE flyer is nearly finished and soon will be used by partners in their own languages. Partners also reviewed the tasks of the different work packages or intellectual outputs. As a reminder, it was emphasized the total sample of students (120) as it is said in the QMP as well as 30 participating teachers.

The second project meeting took place at the University of La Laguna, in Tenerife (Spain) during the 7th and 8th of September.

During the meetings partners discussed the most important activities related to each Intellectual Outcome as well as tasks related to project management.

Firstly the WMU team (Dr. Judita Kasperiuniene) exposed the quality plan and all the main indicators were discussed and modified, as well as the current computer tests development situation (which were analyzed in the Second Day). Later the WSEI team (Dr. Robert Porzak and Dr. Monika Baryła-Matejczuk) presented the promising chess stimuli application initial data that will be part of the MATE outcomes. The ULL team (Dr. Moisés Bethancort, Dr. Ramón Aciego and Lorena García) showed the initial computing task piloting, as well as some aspects related to the professors recruitment and their training. Through several videos we were able to know their chess work performed by this team in the Canary Islands. During the afternoon we participated in a roundtable at the School Council of Canarias presided by Dr. Ramón Aciego where he presented the MATE project to different educational community of the region members.

Finally, we made a visit through the main monuments and architectural buildings of La Laguna guided by Professor Luis Balbuena.

During the second day, the UA team (Dr. Manuel Fernandez and Dr. Mª José Cabañero) reviewed the dissemination activities carried out to date and discussed future tasks, as well as the children training material. Also, Magda Janiak (WSEI team Project Manager) made an exhibition on great relevance issues, regarding the MATE Project management. The meeting ended with a guided tour of the ULL NEUROCOG Research Center by Dr. Manuel de Vega.

Disclaimer

This project has been funded with the support from the European Commission (project no: : 2016-1-PL01-KA201-026365). This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.